Mutability in the matrix gene of novel influenza a H1N1 virus detected using a FRET probe-based real-time reverse transcriptase PCR assay

Influenza A viruses are well known for their genetic diversity. They are constantly evolving through point mutations in their hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) genes and through genetic reassortment of their segmented RNA genome (2). The current pandemic/2009/novel H1N1 influenza A virus (called novel H1N1 herein) is a product of antigenic shift resulting from triple reassortment of human, avian, and swine viruses (7). Between 19 April 2009 and November 2009, 199 countries have reported nearly 6,000 novel influenza A H1N1-related deaths to the World Health Organization (WHO) (3).